Projects List

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The Lifelong Kindergarten group is sowing the seeds for a more creative society. We develop new technologies that, in the spirit of the blocks and fingerpaint of kindergarten, engage people in creative learning experiences. Our ultimate goal is a world full of playfully creative people, who are constantly inventing new possibilities for themselves and their communities.

Research Projects

App Inventor

App Inventor is an open-source tool that democratizes app creation. By combining LEGO-like blocks onscreen, even users with no prior programming experience can use App Inventor to create their own mobile applications. Currently, App Inventor has over 2,000,000 users and is being taught by universities, schools, and community centers worldwide. In those initiatives, students not only acquire important technology skills such as computer programming, but also have the opportunity to apply computational thinking concepts to many fields including science, health, education, business, social action, entertainment, and the arts. Work on App Inventor was initiated in Google Research by Hal Abelson and is continuing at the MIT Media Lab as part of its Center for Mobile Learning, a collaboration with the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and the Scheller Teacher Education Program (STEP).

Askii

J. Philipp Schmidt, Juliana Nazaré

Askii is an SMS-based system that allows adult learners to study for a certification exam while on their commute. When learners have a spare five minutes, they can simply text Askii to begin their customized lessons. Askii will respond with a curated set of questions and links to content that learners can study on the go. We have begun building this prototype for learners to study for the US Naturalization Exam and plan to expand to other certification courses. Askii is a prototype within the large Making Learning Work project.

Build-in-Progress

Tiffany Tseng and Mitchel Resnick

Build-in-Progress is a platform for sharing the story of your design process. With Build-in-Progress, makers document as they develop their design process, incorporating iterations and failures along the way and getting feedback as they develop their projects.

Computer Clubhouse

Mitchel Resnick, Natalie Rusk, Chris Garrity, Alisha Panjwani

At Computer Clubhouse after-school centers, young people (ages 10-18) from low-income communities learn to express themselves creatively with new technologies. Clubhouse members work on projects based on their own interests, with support from adult mentors. By creating their own animations, interactive stories, music videos, and robotic constructions, Clubhouse members become more capable, confident, and creative learners. The first Computer Clubhouse was established in 1993, as a collaboration between the Lifelong Kindergarten group and The Computer Museum (now part of the Boston Museum of Science). With financial support from Intel Corporation, the network has expanded to more than 100 centers in 20 countries, serving more than 20,000 young people. The Lifelong Kindergarten group continues to develop new technologies, introduce new educational approaches, and lead professional-development workshops for Clubhouses around the world.

Computer Clubhouse Village

Chris Garrity, Natalie Rusk, and Mitchel Resnick

The Computer Clubhouse Village is an online community that connects people at Computer Clubhouse after-school centers around the world. Through the Village, Clubhouse members and staff at more than 100 Clubhouses in 20 countries can share ideas with one another, get feedback and advice on their projects, and work together on collaborative design activities.

DIY Cellphone

David A. Mellis and Leah Buechley

An exploration into the possibilities for individual construction and customization of the most ubiquitous of electronic devices, the cellphone. By creating and sharing open-source designs for the phone's circuit board and case, we hope to encourage a proliferation of personalized and diverse mobile phones. Freed from the constraints of mass production, we plan to explore diverse materials, shapes, and functions. We hope that the project will help us explore and expand the limits of do-it-yourself (DIY) practice. How close can a homemade project come to the design of a cutting-edge device? What are the economics of building a high-tech device in small quantities? Which parts are even available to individual consumers? What's required for people to customize and build their own devices?

DressCode

Jennifer Jacobs, Leah Buechley, and Mitchel Resnick

DressCode is a computer-aided design and fabrication tool that combines programming with graphic drawing and manipulation, allowing novice programmers to create computationally-generated, physical artifacts. The software consists of a programming environment and a graphic-user interface design tool, as well as a custom programming language. The GUI tools allow for a unique combination of graphic drawing and computational manipulation, because the software automatically generates editable code in the programming environment that reflects the designer's drawing actions. DressCode exports designs that are compatible with digital fabrication machines, allowing for the creation of physical artifacts. We have introduced DressCode to amateur programmers with a series of craft activities that allow them to produce functional, beautiful, and unique objects including t-shirts, jewelry, and personal accessories.

Duct Tape Network

Mitchel Resnick, Leo Burd, Alisha Panjwani and Rachel Garber

The Duct Tape Network (DTN) is a series of fun, hands-on maker workshops that encourage young children (ages 8-11) to use cardboard, tape, wood, fabric, LED lights, motors, and more to bring their stories and inventions to life. We are designing an educational framework and toolkit to engage kids in the creation of things that they care about before they lose their curiosity or get pulled in by more consumer-oriented technology. DTN workshops include team challenges and tinkering time. Come check them out!

Family Creative Learning

In Family Creative Learning, we engage parents and children in workshops to design and learn together with creative technologies, like the Scratch programming language and the MaKey MaKey invention kit. Just as children's literacy can be supported by parents reading with them, children's creativity can be supported by parents creating with them. In these workshops, we especially target families with limited access to resources and social support around technology. By promoting participation across generations, these workshops engage parents in supporting their children in becoming creators and full participants in today's digital society.

Learning Creative Learning

Learning Creative Learning (http://learn.media.mit.edu/lcl) is an online course that introduces ideas and strategies for supporting creative learning. The course engages educators, designers, and technologists from around the world in applying creative learning tools and approaches from the MIT Media Lab. We view the course as an experimental alternative to traditional Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), putting greater emphasis on peer-to-peer learning, hands-on projects, and sustainable communities.

Learning with Data

Sayamindu Dasgupta and Mitchel Resnick

More and more computational activities revolve around collecting, accessing, and manipulating large sets of data, but introductory approaches for learning programming typically are centered around algorithmic concepts and flow of control, not around data. Computational exploration of data, especially data-sets, has been usually restricted to predefined operations in spreadsheet software like Microsoft Excel. This project builds on the Scratch programming language and environment to allow children to explore data and datasets. With the extensions provided by this project, children can build Scratch programs to not only manipulate and analyze data from online sources, but also to collect data through various means such as surveys and crowd-sourcing. This toolkit will support many different types of projects like online polls, turn-based multiplayer games, crowd-sourced stories, visualizations, information widgets, and quiz-type games.

Libranet

Philipp Schmidt, Katherine McConachie

Libranet is a model for facilitating in-person study groups at community libraries. Aimed at adult learners, Libranet seeks to take advantage of libraries as a free, open community spaces for learning. This model utilizes open, online course material and pairs it with a study group format to foster deeper, more meaningful adult basic educational experiences.

MaKey MaKey

Eric Rosenbaum, Jay Silver, and Mitchel Resnick

MaKey MaKey lets you transform everyday objects into computer interfaces. Make a game pad out of Play-Doh, a musical instrument out of bananas, or any other invention you can imagine. It's a little USB device you plug into your computer, and you use it to make your own switches that act like keys on the keyboard: Make + Key = MaKey MaKey! It’s plug and play. No need for any electronics or programming skills. Since MaKey MaKey looks to your computer like a regular mouse and keyboard, it’s automatically compatible with any piece of software you can think of. It’s great for beginners tinkering and exploring, for experts prototyping and inventing, and for everybody who wants to playfully transform their world.

Making Learning Work

J. Philipp Schmidt, Juliana Nazare, Srishti Sethi

Improving adult learning, especially for adults who are unemployed or unable to financially support their families, is a challenge that affects the future wellbeing of millions of individuals in the US. We are working with the Joyce Foundation, employers, learning researchers, and the Media Lab community to prototype three to five new models for adult learning that involve technology innovation and behavioral insights.

Making with Stories

Alisha Panjwani, Natalie Rusk, Mitchel Resnick

We are developing a set of participatory "maker" activities to engage youth in creating tangible projects that depict stories about themselves and their worlds. These activities introduce electronics and computational tools as a medium to create, connect, express, and derive meaning from personal narratives. For example, we are offering workshops where participants design sewable circuits and bring them together to create a collaborative Story Quilt. Through the Making with Stories project we are exploring how story-based pedagogy can inspire youth participation in arts and engineering within formal and informal learning environments.

Map Scratch

Sayamindu Dasgupta, Brian Silverman, and Mitchel Resnick

Map Scratch is an extension of Scratch that enables kids to program with maps within their Scratch projects. With Map Scratch, kids can create interactive tours, games, and data visualizations with real-world geographical data and maps.

Media Lab Digital Certificates

The Media Lab will award certificates to members of our community that are outside of the academic program. A project from the Learning Learning initiative, the certificates are registered on the blockchain, cryptographically signed, and tamper proof, these certificates can be designed to represent different contributions or recognition. What they stand for is included in the certificate. Through these objects we will critically explore notions of social capital and reputation, empathy and gift economies, and social behavior. We are also developing a blueprint/model for other people to start doing the same. The code is open source so that others can experiment with the idea of digital certificates. Those certificates would have no connection to the Media Lab.

Media Lab Digital Certificates

The Media Lab will award certificates to members of our community that are outside of the academic program. Created by the Learning Learning initiative, the certificates are registered on the blockchain, cryptographically signed, and tamper proof. These certificates can be designed to represent different contributions or recognition. What they stand for is included in the certificate. Through these objects we will critically explore notions of social capital and reputation, empathy and gift economies, and social behavior. We are also developing a blueprint/ model for other people to start doing the same. The code is open source so that others can experiment with the idea of digital certificates. Those certificates would have no connection to the Media Lab.

Media Lab Virtual Visit

Srishti Sethi and J. Philipp Schmidt

Media Lab Virtual Visit is intended to open up the doors of the Media Lab to people from all around the world. The visit is hosted on the Unhangout platform, a new way of running large-scale unconferences on the web that was developed at the Media Lab. It is an opportunity for students or potential collaborators to talk with current researchers at the Lab, learn about their work, and share ideas.

MelodyMorph

Eric Rosenbaum and Mitchel Resnick

MelodyMorph is an interface for constructing melodies and making improvised music. It removes a constraint of traditional musical instruments: a fixed mapping between space and pitch. What if you blew up the piano so you could put the keys anywhere you want? With MelodyMorph you can create a customized musical instrument, unique to the piece of music, the player, or the moment.

Novice Design of Interactive Products

David A. Mellis and Mitchel Resnick

Despite recent widespread interest in hobbyist electronics and the maker movement, the design of printed circuit boards (PCBs) remains an obscure and often intimidating activity. This project attempts to introduce PCB design and production to new audiences by creating examples, activities, and other resources that provide context and motivation for those practices. We've developed a series of interactive lights that demonstrate the creation of useable products with simple circuits. These examples introduce novices to the space of possibilities and provide them with a starting point for creating their own designs. In workshops, novices design, produce, assemble, and program their own electronic circuits. These workshops provide an entry point to understanding the way that electronic products are made and an opportunity for discussion and reflection about how more people might get involved in their production.

Open Learning

Philipp Schmidt and Mitchel Resnick

Learning for everyone, by everyone. The Open Learning project builds online learning communities that work like the web: peer-to-peer, loosely joined, open. And it works with Media Lab faculty and students to open up the magic of the Lab through online learning. Our first experiment was Learning Creative Learning, a course taught at the Media Lab, which attracted 24,000 participants. We are currently developing ideas for massive citizen science projects, engineering competitions for kids, and new physical infrastructures for learning that reclaim the library.

Para

Jennifer Jacobs, Mitchel Resnick, Joel Brandt, and Radomir Mech

Procedural representations, enabled through programming, are a powerful tool for digital illustration—but writing code conflicts with the intuitiveness and immediacy of direct manipulation. Para is a digital illustration tool that uses direct manipulation to define and edit procedural artwork. Through creating and altering vector paths, artists can define iterative distributions, parametric constraints, and conditional behaviors. Para makes it easier for people to create generative artwork, and creates a intuitive workflow between manual and procedural drawing methods.

Read Out Loud

J. Philipp Schmidt and Juliana Nazare

Read Out Loud is an application that empowers adults learning English to turn almost any reading material into an experience to help them learn English. Learners can take a picture of a page of text; the app then scans in the page and presents the learner with a host of additional tools to facilitate reading. They can read the text aloud, which helps learners who are more comfortable with spoken English understand what is written. They can also select words to translate them into their native language. With this prototype, we want to give adult learners more agency to learn from material that focuses on subjects they care about, as well as increase access to English language learning material. Any book from the public library could become learning material with support in their native language. Read Out Loud is a prototype within the large Making Learning Work project.

Scratch is a programming language and online community (http://scratch.mit.edu) that makes it easy to create your own interactive stories, games, animations, and simulations—and share your creations online. As young people create and share Scratch projects, they learn to think creatively, reason systematically, and work collaboratively, while also learning important mathematical and computational ideas. Young people around the world have shared more than six million projects on the Scratch website, with thousands of new projects every day. (For information on who has contributed to Scratch, see the Scratch Credits page: http://scratch.mit.edu/info/credits/)

Scratch Data Blocks

Scratch Data Blocks is an NSF-funded project that extends the Scratch programming language to enable youth to analyze and visualize their own learning and participation in the Scratch online community. With Scratch Data Blocks, youth in the Scratch community can easily access, analyze, and represent data about the ways they program, share, and discuss Scratch projects.

Scratch Day

Lisa O'Brien, Kasia Chmielinski, Carl Bowman, and Mitchel Resnick

Scratch Day (day.scratch.mit.edu) is a network of face-to-face local gatherings, on the same day in all parts of the world, where people can meet, share, and learn more about Scratch, a programming environment that enables people to create their own interactive stories, games, animations, and simulations. We believe that these types of face-to-face interactions remain essential for ensuring the accessibility and sustainability of initiatives such as Scratch. In-person interactions enable richer forms of communication among individuals, more rapid iteration of ideas, and a deeper sense of belonging and participation in a community. The first Scratch Day took place in 2009. In 2014, there were 260 events in 56 countries.

Scratch Extensions

The Scratch extension system enables anyone to extend the Scratch programming language through custom programming blocks written in JavaScript. The extension system is designed to enable innovating on the Scratch programming language itself, in addition to innovating with it through projects. With the extension system, anyone can write custom Scratch blocks that enable others to use Scratch to program hardware devices such as the LEGO WeDo, get data from online web-services such as weather.com, and use advanced web-browser capabilities such as speech recognition.

ScratchJr

The ScratchJr project brings the ideas and spirit of Scratch programming activities to younger children, enabling children ages five to seven to program their own interactive stories, games, and animations. To make ScratchJr developmentally appropriate for younger children, we are revising the interface and providing new structures to help young children learn core math concepts and problem-solving strategies. ScratchJr is now available as a free app for iPads (and will be available for Android soon). ScratchJr is a collaboration between the MIT Media Lab, Tufts University, and Playful Invention Company.

Singing Fingers

Eric Rosenbaum, Jay Silver, and Mitchel Resnick

Singing Fingers allows children to fingerpaint with sound. Users paint by touching a screen with a finger, but color only emerges if a sound is made at the same time. By touching the painting again, users can play back the sound. This creates a new level of accessibility for recording, playback, and remixing of sound.

Spin

Tiffany Tseng and Mitchel Resnick

Spin is a photography turntable system that lets you capture how your DIY projects come together over time. With Spin, you can create GIFs and videos of your projects that you can download and share on Twitter, Facebook, or any other social network.

Start Making!

The Lifelong Kindergarten group is collaborating with the Museum of Science in Boston to develop materials and workshops that engage young people in "maker" activities in Computer Clubhouses around the world, with support from Intel. The activities introduce youth to the basics of circuitry, coding, crafting, and engineering. In addition, graduate students are testing new maker technologies and workshops for Clubhouse staff and youth. The goal of the initiative is to help young people from under-served communities gain experience and confidence in their ability to design, create, and invent with new technologies.

Unhangout

Philipp Schmidt, Drew Harry, Charlie DeTar, and Srishti Sethi

Unhangout is an open-source platform for running large-scale unconferences online. We use Google Hangouts to create as many small sessions as needed, and help users find others with shared interests. Think of it as a classroom with an infinite number of breakout sessions. Each event has a landing page, which we call the lobby. When participants arrive, they can see who else is there and chat with each other. The hosts can do a video welcome and introduction that gets streamed into the lobby. Participants then break out into smaller sessions (up to 10 people per session) for in-depth conversations, peer-to-peer learning, and collaboration on projects. Unhangouts are community-based learning instead of top-down information transfer.